Need 140mm&120mm fans: Looking for well-rounded air cool

Control: management of fans, temp/rpm monitoring via soft/hardware

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
nwbdan
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Jan 12, 2010 2:44 pm
Location: EU

Need 140mm&120mm fans: Looking for well-rounded air cool

Post by nwbdan » Fri Jan 22, 2010 11:37 am

Hi everyone!

Been reading your articles for some time now, decided I should start getting some work done, now that exams are almost over.

I recently built a new rig:
Case: Cooler Master Gladiator 600 (sorry, can't post URL :/)
AMD Phenom II x2 550BE
OCZ 10333 2x2 DDR3
Asus M45TD-V EVO
Arctic Cooling Pro 7 Rev.2

Like many before me, reading the articles and posts on this site has created a silence-eating monster inside me that cannot be put to rest.
I have to sleep and study next to my computer, so there's a perfectly rational reason for me to want this too. So let's go shopping! :D

I haven't got around to OCing this baby yet, but I will as soon as I have some free time, and have my fans installed. Which is why I need your help first.

The case has 5 fan mounts. I'm looking for 2 x 140mm fans to replace the ones (1x140 and 1x120) that came with the case. These will be installed on the front intake and the top outake (so this one horizontally - no sleeve bearing, right?).

I'm not really sure about 140mm fans. You guys don't seem to talk about them much here... But if my thinking is correct, having bigger fans allows me to run them slower and thus quieter. Correct?

So these 2x 140mm fans will be running permanently, @5V or @7V, whatever they can do. Also, I'd want the front intake fan to have blue LEDs. The case comes with a button to turn leds on/off, but I'm not sure if other LED fans will allow me to use that.

I was thinking of getting the Yate Loons, but they don't seem to be available around here. So would Sharkoon or Scythe be good alternatives?

I would also like to buy 2 x 120mm fans. This time one for the back exaust (which is the only fan mount that doesn't take 140mm fans) and for the side panel. These are meant to be ran of a Y-split connect to the motherboards system fan connector. I will only be using them when I game, and thus need to OC. The intake fan will be blowing air directly on the IGP, which is what concerns me, really.

That way, when I need to study, I'll have a quiet computer, that will quickly transform into a (relatively) good performer with just a few clicks of speed fan and some OCing.

I also want to keep a 1:1 ration on the intake/outake CFM, for better airflow. So 140mm fans will always be on together, and 120mm will always come on together as well.

CPU fan will be ran on PWM, and I'll probably not tinker much there.
Also, I don't think I will pay (or can pay, really!) more than €10 for a fan.

So, sorry for the long looong post! Been reading around here for a long time and want to get everything right ;)

Thanks in advance!
Cheers,
nwbdan

nwbdan
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Jan 12, 2010 2:44 pm
Location: EU

Post by nwbdan » Fri Jan 22, 2010 3:05 pm

Ok, been waiting to get home, had these fans written there.
So this is what I came up with, after searching the stores around here.

140mm fans:
Sharkoon System Fan Silent 140mm 900RPM
8.60€
82,8 m3/h / 22dbA

Scythe Kaze Maru 140mm 1200RPM
7.75€
26.58dBA / 61.30CFM , Sleeve Bearing

NoiseBlocker Black Silent XK2 140mm (1100 rpm)
€9.90
85.0 m3/h / 19.5 dBA


120mm:
Scythe Slip Stream 120mm 1200RPM
6.25€
24,00 dBA / 68,54 CFM = 117 m³/h, Sleeve Bearing

Sharkoon System Fan Silent 120mm 1000RPM
6.55€
57,2 m3/h / 21dBA

NoiseBlocker Black Silent XL2 120mm
€7.90
98 m3/h / 21.0 dBA

They all seem like good fans, but I can't get my head round the different rpm and how they compare to each other.

I'm looking for 2 fans that are mostly low noise at an airflow capable of cooling my computer when it's not OCed - this I leave up to the 140mm fans, I believe? Also, one is going to be mounted horizontally, but there seems to be some indecision regarding sleeve bearings and their ability to withstand this.

Then I need 2 120mm fans that have good airflow (noise is important, but not so much with these) and good voltage control through mobo.

Can you help?

nwbdan
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Jan 12, 2010 2:44 pm
Location: EU

Post by nwbdan » Sat Jan 23, 2010 2:33 pm

Ok, so I've decided to go for it and put down an order for these two:

NoiseBlocker Black Silent XK1 140mm
€9.80

It does 12dbA @ 800 rpm. This is what I'll use for everyday, ordinary cooling.

And then one of these:
NoiseBlocker Black Silent XL2 120mm
€7.90

It's rated at 21dbA @ 1500 rpm.

It's not one of SPCR's recommend 120mm fans, but it still seems a good option. Xbit has written good things about it.
I'll probably only run it when OCed too.

So what do you guys think?
I'll let you know when the fans get here. If they're not so good, I can always undervolt them and go for the scythe fans for the other 2.

Cheers

quest_for_silence
Posts: 5275
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:12 am
Location: ITALY

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Jan 24, 2010 1:03 am

nwbdan wrote:So what do you guys think?
I'll let you know when the fans get here. If they're not so good, I can always undervolt them and go for the scythe fans for the other 2.

IMO you can't rely on other people's opinion.

Just as example, in my findings almost every fan which spins at more than 1200rpm is not enough quiet for me, but someone else surely won't agree with me on this.

If peace of mind is your goal, you've only to try out by yourself.

About undervolting, give first a try to SpeedFan.

And about SPCR recommended fans, IMVHO it's too much time that SPCR doesn't make some round up on them, so that list can be no more exhaustive at all.

Regards,
Luca

zds
Posts: 261
Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2004 1:26 pm
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact:

Post by zds » Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:26 pm

quest_for_silence wrote:
nwbdan wrote:So what do you guys think?
I'll let you know when the fans get here. If they're not so good, I can always undervolt them and go for the scythe fans for the other 2.

IMO you can't rely on other people's opinion.

Just as example, in my findings almost every fan which spins at more than 1200rpm is not enough quiet for me, but someone else surely won't agree with me on this.
You're mixing two things here. What's the borderline for acceptable noise depends on the listener and the place you listen them in.. but there are also differences between noise made by items doing the same job. And that's what we are after here.

That being said, "you can always undervolt them" is not always true either. Some fans are just not acceptable however much you undervolt them, and even if they are, if some other fans moves 50% more air with the same level of noise, there's no point in buying the worse ones.

140 fan roundup.. I would very much like to have one. Now we only have some implicit tests for 140mm fans, like for Scythe Maru and Noctua.

quest_for_silence
Posts: 5275
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:12 am
Location: ITALY

Post by quest_for_silence » Wed Feb 17, 2010 3:58 pm

zds wrote:
quest_for_silence wrote:IMO you can't rely on other people's opinion.

Just as example, in my findings almost every fan which spins at more than 1200rpm is not enough quiet for me, but someone else surely won't agree with me on this.
You're mixing two things here. What's the borderline for acceptable noise depends on the listener and the place you listen them in.. but there are also differences between noise made by items doing the same job. And that's what we are after here.

That being said, "you can always undervolt them" is not always true either. Some fans are just not acceptable however much you undervolt them, and even if they are, if some other fans moves 50% more air with the same level of noise, there's no point in buying the worse ones.
I guess you don't get a clue.

Let's start from the last point.
I have not speak about undervolting in general terms, but I've just given him a practical hint: if you go for it, give SpeedFan a try. So if you was referring to his original state, please quote accordingly.

But more important, I have not mixed anything: I've just given another practical tip.

There are differences between different fans, that seems almost obvious: but those differences are valued on very subjective basis EVER.

So if you (already) own those two fans, keep this thing simple: don't wait for other people advices, but just try them, as it's very often more worthwile than any opinion, even qualified ones (even mines), you can read. And if they are enough quiet, then you'll know.

Regards,
Luca

Post Reply